


The Envy of All I See

by thalialunacy



Category: Star Trek RPF
Genre: M/M, Matchmaking, On Set, Romantic Comedy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-11
Updated: 2014-02-11
Packaged: 2018-01-12 00:16:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,877
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1179637
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thalialunacy/pseuds/thalialunacy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Karl makes ridiculous faces. Chris pretends it doesn't bother him. Zach is smarter than the rest of them combined.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Envy of All I See

**Author's Note:**

  * For [norfolkdumpling](https://archiveofourown.org/users/norfolkdumpling/gifts).



> **Dedication** : Vicki my darling, this is for you. Happy birthday. <3 (I was gonna write you something with Karl in eyeliner, but this was just begging to be finished. Hope you don't mind. ^^)
> 
>  **Notes** : This fic was started & nearly finished way back in the day (2011). I have no idea why it was abandoned, but I found it again, and just in time for a very amazing lady's birthday.  
>  **Disclaimer** : Obvious fictional content is fictional. Please, please don’t sue me. And don’t be hatin, we just like the fuckin.  
>  **Credits/Sources/Inspirations/Etc** : It all started with [this picture](http://pics.livejournal.com/thalialunacy/pic/002eh88g), obvs, which led to a prompt from the lovely 3_foot_6, which, yes, I already filled [once](http://archiveofourown.org/works/285438), which might've been why this one was abandoned, come to think of it. But I like this one a lot, too, and some girl had a birthday, so. The title is, indeed, from _Fiddler on the Roof_. Thanks to jazzy_peaches  & starsfell & the crew on Tumblr. Source credits go to _When Harry Met Sally…_ , and, as always, Aaron motherfucking Sorkin.

Chris notices first. Karl’s sitting there, lost in his script and plucking at his bottom lip with one finger absently, an atrociously constipated look on his features.

Chris has a twinkle in his eye. “Karl-Heinz, you keep making that face, it’s going to freeze that way.”

Karl glances up at where Chris and Zach are standing, shooting Chris a totally not serious glare. “What, are you channeling my mother now?”

This makes Chris smile, which then makes Karl smile, dimples and everything.

Zach glances between them, a curious look on his face. Neither of them notice. 

\---

“You know, I’m starting to think Pine’s not the only one around here with a predilection for excessive displays of oral dexterity.”

“Hmm?” Karl looks up from where he’s got his email open on Zoe’s laptop, which she lets them use with a no-porn stipulation. (‘Unless it’s top shelf,’ she’d add privately with one of her little winks.)

Zach tilts up his chin and drops his gaze to Karl’s mouth, where his tongue has been poking out the corner of his lips.

“Oh.” Karl purses his lips, the tongue making a hasty retreat. “Yeah.” He shuts the computer and stretches, and Zach admires the view as the blue shirt scootches up his belly. “I blame my kids. Ever since… they started spending more time here, I’ve been picking up their annoying kid-habits.”

Zach pauses at the not-mention of the divorce and the trans-global custody arrangements. “How are they?”

Karl shrugs, which unsettles the shirt even more. He tugs at it. “They go home for school in a couple of days.”

Zach does the Manly Shoulder Pat thing. “Well, we’ll just have to find some way to keep you entertained until they come back.”

Karl snorts a laugh. “Oh, I think this group of hooligans is quite enough, thank you.” His gaze sweeps around the room and lingers—clearly unconsciously—on Chris. “You keep me on my toes just fine.”

And when Zach walks away, he just might be whistling. Chris hears it and looks at him funny. “Why the fuck do you have _Fiddler on the Roof_ in your head?”

“No reason.”

“Okay. Yenta.”

\---

“You keep sticking out that lip, Karl, you’re gonna catch it on something,” Chris calls to where Karl’s bottom lip pushes out while he peruses the day’s script changes.

“Yeah, like my dick,” Zach snerks under his breath from right beside Chris. Chris thumps him one. “What? Look at that mouth! Like you’ve never thought about it.”

Chris tries, he really tries, to shrug it off with a “Not really, no,” but he’s not quick enough, and his face—

“Ohmygod,” Zach says in that I’m-secretly-a-14-year-old-girl way. “You’ve thought about it a lot, haven’t you?” Chris opens his mouth but again, he’s not the world’s smoothest liar so nothing but stuttering comes out, and Zach’s eyes light up with evil immediately. “You _have_.”

Chris glares at him, glancing across to where Karl is sitting. “Shut up.”

“You’ve thought about it for the last ten _years_ ,” Zach needles.

“Shut _up_.”

“No, wait!” He claps his hands in glee. “You’ve been thinking about it since Xena. You have _Cupid_ fantasies, don’t lie to me.”

“My freshman year roommate watched it _incessantly_! Not my fault!”

“Riiiiight.”

“Shut. Up.”

“Hail Caesar.”

“I loathe you.”

\---

“So when you gonna do something about it?”

“Oh, will you get the fuck off?”

“No,” Zach smirks, “not until you do. With him.” He makes a rim-shot motion, clearly pleased with himself.

“Because the chances of that happening are anywhere over, oh, nil? I think not.”

“Whatever, you’re Chris motherfucking Pine. You’re a walking sex machine.”

“Perhaps you haven’t noticed, Quinto, but I have a penis.”

“Oh, I’ve noticed. The Bulge has its own zipcode on the map of my mind.”

“I think Karl may have noticed, too.”

“And?”

“Oh come on. Don’t tell me you’re laboring under the delusion that Karl secretly likes boys, too?”

Zach arches one of those impressive eyebrows at him. “I think he most definitely likes _you_.”

“You’re insane.”

“That’s neither here nor there.”

“Cute.”

“Damn straight I am. Pardoning the pun. But that’s not the point.”

“Thank fuck.”

“The point is that if anybody could inspire conversion, it’s you.” Chris opens his mouth again but Zach raises a hand. “Don’t argue with me. I know you’ve had boys hit on you before.”

“Yeah, but I figured they were just being—you know, boys.”

“Fair point.”

“Thank you.”

“But I’m not wrong.”

“But what about—“

“The divorce has been finalized for months now and they were separated for _two years_ before that. I know for a fact he’s gotten laid since then.”

“What?” Chris’ nose wrinkles.

"Don't 'what' me."

"Right, well, I mostly meant, 'still doesn't prove dick.' Pun intended. And what’s with suddenly going into yenta mode, anyway? Bored?"

Zach tut-tuts. “Someone needs to give you a good deep dicking, and my dance card is full at the moment.”

"Well, thank goodness for small mercies, as my grandmother would say."

Zach turns and blows a kiss. "You know you want a piece of this."

Chris rolls his eyes. "Megalomaniac."

"Malingerer."

"Jesus fucking Christ, are you kidding me right now?"

Zach just shrugs. "If you got it, flaunt it. And I've got a huge…" He smirks. "…vocabulary."

\---

“Hey, Pine, do you—“ Zach stops when he sees Chris is totally not listening. He’s instead staring at… something. Zach follows his gaze, then puts his hand over a mouthful of laughter. “Oh, I see.”

It’s Karl, of course. He’s taken advantage of JJ getting distracted with the lighting and sat himself down in the captain’s chair. Really, he’s taken _over_ the captain’s chair, settling back and pulling one knee up like a kid watching tv.

The view is admirable—not only the pants stretching over his groin in an entirely unrevealing yet ridiculously alluring way, and his shirt hitches up in the back nicely as well—but they’ve all seen each other in various states of dress and undress at this point so that’s clearly not what’s got Chris so entranced.

No, what’s got Chris is clearly Karl’s new oral fixation: he’s sitting there, watching the proceedings detachedly, while repeatedly—and undoubtedly unconsciously—pursing his lips into a smoochy shape.

Chris looks like he wants to die.

“Hey, Karl,” Zach calls out, purposefully ignoring Chris’ alarmed glare. “You keep making those kissy faces, somebody might consider it an offer.”

Karl laughs his easy laugh. “Thanks, Zach, but we’ve gone over this. You’re not my type.”

“I know, I know,” Zach says with a half-swoon hand to his forehead. “Gentlemen prefer blondes.”

Chris makes a choking noise from behind his bottle of water. Zach smirks. “You okay there, lil buddy?”

“Yeah, I’m—“ Chris coughs. “Fine.”

“Yes, you are.” Zach pats him on the ass and takes his leave.

\---

"That was incredibly tactless," Chris says later. "What with Natalie being… blonde…"

"I know." And Zach does look mildly ashamed. Mildly. "And I said as much, later."

Chris immediately zones in on this. "And what else did you say?"

"Relax, Princess. I didn't tell him of your pining."

"You're dead to me."

"You love my puns."

"Not that one."

\---

“Chris. Earth to—“ Zach knows what’s got Chris so distracted before he turns but does it anyways. “Karl!” He throws up one hand. “What is _with_ the faces?”

Karl looks startled. “Pardon?”

“Yeah, you keep—“ Zach demonstrates. “You were doing it again.”

Karl shrugs. “I’m bored?”

“That’s just how he rolls,” Chris says with one of his I’m-secretly-a-six-year-old grins.

Zach rolls his eyes. “Would you please stop using slang from when you were in college? It’s been like ten years. The world has moved on.”

"I haven't."

"Spoken like a true straight white upper-class cis-male American."

"Oh, go choke on a cock."

Zach raises an eyebrow. "Ladies first."

\---

As you might suspect by now, Zach is a really ineffective Yenta.

But the captain's chair proves to be more than up to the challenge.

\---

“Hey?” The background noise of the courtyard bar is easily discernable and Karl immediately lets out a curse.

“Oh damn, Chris, I’m sorry, I…. forgot.”

“We’ve been having beer at Samantha’s every third Friday for like a decade and now you forget? I am truly wounded, buddy. Tell me where you are and I’ll see if I forgive you.”

“I’m… on set.”

“What? For how long?”

The empty pause is the real answer. “I don’t know. I just—came to get a picture Indy requested, Jamie let me in, but I—“

“How about you just stay right where you are. I’ll pick up some beer. Same program, different location.”

“But—“

“Karl. Shut up. I’ll be there in a jiffy.”

\---

And by 'jiffy,' he means, 'I really love having an excuse to break fifty traffic laws.' His car handles the road well, okay.

When he gets there, and gets past Jamie the Night Security guy, he has to call around the echoey stage a couple times, before coming into the main set and catching Karl in the act.

Of sitting in the captain's chair.

"Uh, hi," Chris manages. "I brought beer."

He can't stop staring. He may have had a beer and a shot at Samantha's, and he's tired, and Karl is in the motherfucking captain's chair, okay. So he's staring, and it's noticeable.

“What?” Karl asks, eyeing him warily, before grabbing the six pack from his hand and twisting off a cap. 

Chris doesn’t move. “You’re _in_ the _chair_.”

Karl takes a swig, almost smiling. “Don’t tell me you’re possessive about this thing."

“Dude. _You’re_ in the chair.”

“And you're a broken record. You told me on the phone to stay put.”

“You were in the chair the whole time?”

“It’s the picture Indy wanted.” Karl scrubs a hand over his face. “You gonna drink one of these, or what?”

“Yeah, but—“

“But what?”

And he sounds so fucking tired, Chris's urgency recedes a little. He opens his own beer, takes a drag. He'd kill for a smoke right about now.

"Penny for them," he says instead.

Karl snorts. "What is this, 1956?"

"Okay, nickel. Quarter?"

"That's about what they're worth at the moment," Karl says, tone agreeable but jaw tight, and Chris hates it, hates the stressed out look on anybody but on Karl it's--

He puts down his beer, puts up a 'hang on a sec' finger, then quietly goes to get one of the director-style chairs from offstage.

He sets it down on the floor by the captain's chair, close enough their knees knock gently. "A million dollars for them?" he says quietly.

Karl's eyes soften, his whole face, really, and Chris is relieved.

"It's the usual stuff," Karl tries.

Chris shakes his head. "Nuh-uh. You're sitting in the captain's chair of the USS Enterprise. Nothing is usual about this."

"True."

"So try me."

Karl inhales, exhales through pursed lips. “I miss my kids.”

"Okay. They're fantastic, of course you miss them."

Karl's smile is soft, and he regards Chris with a fondness that makes Chris a little twitchy. Like, twitchy enough to just lean forward and--

But Karl breaks the moment, looking down at his bottle. “I miss Nat, too.” It smarts more than Chris expected. He’s busy blaming the beer when Karl continues. “Not in the—I mean, she’s amazing, and I will always—but—“ He purses his lips. “In the sense that I miss having someone around. That’s part of why it…. Well. You know. Someone to sleep in with and go to dinner with. A date on national holidays.” He laughs a little. “Although which nation’s holidays, I’m… not sure.”

Chris chuckles, obligatory but well-meant, and contemplates his beer for a second. "You think anybody in this industry gets something that mundane?" He says it gently, to take out the inherent sting.

Karl sighs. "No."

Chris nods. "And there's the rub."

"But I still…" Karl trails off, glancing at Chris. "I still have this stupid hope that maybe, you know. Something. Will work."

Chris lets it sit for a moment, really tries to let it sit. But then—then he just can't let it sit anymore. He doesn’t know if it’s the beer or the residual energy on the set or the way Karl looks in the chair, or the position of Mercury, or what the fuck ever, but he feels it like a crackle in the air, between them, and he just—he just gives in.

"This could," he says, then he leans in and presses his lips to Karl's.

Karl's lips are not warm, because the stage is not, but they become warm, instantly, as Chris kisses them. The heat blooms between them, and Chris goes in again, this time with his lips parted just a little, just a hint, and his lungs fill with sparks as Karl responds, kissing back with intent, damp delicious heat mingling amongst tender skin and beard burn.

Karl pulls away first. Chris tries not to cry. His hand stays where it's found Karl's knee, though, and he'll be fucked if he's going to remove it unless explicitly requested to do so. 

But no such request comes. Karl merely looks at Chris, his brow wrinkled. “I’m confused.”

Chris clears his throat. It hurts. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t’ve—Let’s just forget it—“ He starts to lift his hand, to move away.

"No," Karl says again, firmly, his hand catching Chris's wrist before he can really get anywhere. "I'm just confused."

"Uh…" Chris licks his lips. "Kissing confuses you?"

"Chris."

And the way it sounds, 'Chruss,' fucking Christ he's a goner.

He leans in, lands another quick kiss. "I know, but—" And another, good god the man is like magnetic north. "I was hoping it would speak for itself. You know, the—"

He lingers, this time, coaxing Karl's mouth open, seeking Karl's taste, finding just the beginning of it. "…kissing," he finally says, roughly, thoroughly out of breath.

Karl's mouth turns up, a small smile but his eyes are open, wide. "Words are good, too, eh?"

And yeah, Chris thinks, it makes sense, that even a guy as overly cheerful and confident as Karl would maybe need some reassurance at this juncture.

So he reaches with both hands up Karl's legs, up his sides, to frame his face, slide into his hair, palm the sandpaper skin of his neck. "I'm stupid for you, man. How have you not figured this out yet?"

Karl's looking at his lips, his eyes full of love and shadowed with something akin to awe. Awe and glee. "I was a little distracted."

Chris snorts. "Yeah, as was I. By you. Although I didn't know it until Quinto—well—let's just say he's going to be really smug about this whole thing."

"Alright," Karl says, but that's all he says, and Chris is going a little nuts.

"Alright? I don't know what that means, man."

"Berkeley is so proud right now."

Chris makes a noise, narrows his eyes. "Fine. I'm going to kiss you. Again. That alright?"

"By all means."

They're well into it before long, licking and groaning like teenagers, and Chris still can't quite believe it's actually happening. Then Karl's hands slide firmly up his thighs, pulling him into the chair, and Chris breaks out of the kiss with a laugh, suddenly and irrevocably _present_. The smell of the stage, of Karl, the sound of the stillness of the empty building, the cold air on his back. The heat of Karl.

He manages to get a knee on either side of Karl's hips, but it's a tight squeeze. It's hard to complain when _Karl Urban_ is warm beneath him, hard thighs and roving hands.

Karl notices before long, however. “This chair is not big enough for two of us,” he says into Chris's jaw.

Chris grins. More than he was grinning already, that is. “I bet Kirk would’ve installed a button for that.”

Karl chuckles, and it's a glorious thing, murmuring through Chris's skin. “Yes. ‘Computer, execute Daybed Mode.’”

Chris shakes his head. “No, man, Kirk goes hard or goes home. It’d be King Sized Vibrating Bed Mode.”

This time it's a full laugh, escaping Karl's throat when he throws back his head, almost clocking Chris one, and Chris, very reluctantly, starts pulling back.

"As much as the idea of christening the captain's chair is an appealing one, I am not interested in the Wrath of Kathleen, are you?" Their set dresser is a wonderful dragon of a lady. "Plus, I have a rather huge bed."

Karl grins. "Oh you do?"

"I do," Chris says, nodding solemnly.

"Maybe I'm not that kind of girl."

Chris throws up his hands. "Oh come on, everyone's that kind of girl when it comes to Captain Kirk."

Karl's eyebrow goes up, all the way up. "I don't see a Command gold shirt on you."

Chris stares at him. "I can get one. Uh, steal one." He licks his lips. "Borrow one." His heart feels like it's about to execute Explode Into Hearts and Sprinkles Mode. He cocks his head towards wardrobe. "You wanna?"

Karl swoops in with a laugh, kissing the hell out of him, and Chris just grabs in and holds on, for all that he's worth. "You bet."

_**fin** _


End file.
